First, let me say I have almost been totally on board with Premier Alden McLaughlin’s handling of the coronavirus measures he has put in place to keep us safe from the terrible virus.

He has had a very, very difficult job to balance the scales between trying to eradicate the spread of the epidemic and salvaging the economy.

He chose eradication and so we have all been shut down. If you compare us with other countries, nearly all much larger in size and population and with many more cases and deaths, we are in a category that is next to a total shutdown, whilst these others mostly are not. We are in Category 7 and only above us is 8.

I am NOT criticising him!

However, one can see from the excellent and informative Press Briefings the government provide us with five days a week, the Premier would love us to shut up. Any criticism of his measures that he actually tells us about is portrayed with astonishment, hand gesturing, a stern face and coldness.

Even reasonable ideas that appear in the social media pages, yes I agree most are not and some are downright ridiculous and dangerous, are not even discussed.

The area where the Health Minister, Dwayne Seymour, has rarely mentioned is mental health and its particular effect on the aged. The Premier has avoided the subject completely and surprisingly, no questions from my media colleagues have been raised either to him, the premier or the Chief Medical Officer.

The Cayman Islands must be unique in that despite all the aged persons here from 60 upwards, do not appear to be suffering any mental health issues over anxiety and depression. Despite listening to the daily doses of death, isolation and fear that has to be generating widespread psychological trauma.

The only worry the Premier is concerned with appears to be the coronavirus and how we were as a small country initially unable to deal with a big outbreak of the virus. Even now, being much better prepared, we would not be able to deal with a full scale epidemic. I am hopeful the Premier’s measures will prevent that from happening.

What is going to happen is our mental-health system — vastly underfunded, fragmented and difficult to access before the virus hit our shores, will be even less prepared to handle this coming surge of mental illness.

And, Mr. Premier, BY SHUTTING DOWN THE BEACHES AND SWIMMING has now made that a certainty. That was the only relief from the stress we had. I say ‘we’ as I am approaching 77 and my wife, Joan is 85.

I have already shown in a previous Editorial (with pictures I took) the same afternoon you, along with the Commissioner of Police, pronounced at the Press Briefing, there were people on the beaches in large numbers congregating with no social distancing and coolers filled with beer, the beach area I was at, was empty of people. Except for three. My wife and I comprised two of them and we were there for over an hour.

We laid on the beach, we walked it and both of us had a dip in the sea. The area we were in was by the Governor’s residency. The large number of people (I was told there was twenty) was further down by the Public Beach near where the bars are located. The bars were serving food and illegally dishing out liquor. It was also the beginning of the Easter Weekend. Near where my wife and I were parked near the road were two police officers on separate beach motor bikes. They were just sitting there and not once ventured onto the beach but sat on their bikes until they got a call and left. If you think they had got a call to investigate what was going on down west you would be wrong. They turned east towards George Town.

“It is impossible to police the beaches”, has been the cry from the Premier and the Police Commissioner, who for some unexplained reason wanted to prohibit swimming in the sea, but thankfully was overruled. But not for long.

Of course it is impossible to police all the our beaches. However, us aged persons don’t want all our beaches. Just a few designated areas would suit us fine. We get designated times we can go to. Foster’s and the other supermarkets give us priority. What priorities does the government give us? What measures in all the shut downs instigated by the government have the aged (and the persons with disabilities) been given? Has any measures been introduced to see that the handing out of masks is given to the aged first?

The answer to these questions is a great big “NO”!!!

Yes, Premier, I may be shut in but I am not going to shut up about it.

Unless you and your Health Minister start to take the Aged into consideration with these shut down measures your Health Ministry system will collapse. It will not be able to absorb or even reach the mental suffering that has already started to take place. It is untreated and will become an epidemic that will not ever be over, unlike the coronavirus.

Everyone of us here are afraid. Those who are below the 60 year old line will also soon be showing mental health symptoms. It is shocking no one is talking about it.

And there aren’t enough government mental homes to really shut us up in. In your briefings there hasn’t been one consideration given to mental health and the other vulnerable groups of Cayman’s society.

Open up at the very least, the beaches to us. That will be a help. Then I will shut up….. Hmmm.

Maybe not.